Fate
by NeilTrinity
Summary: Tanaka Shirai leads a very complicated life. Once a great Soul Reaper, she fled the Soul Society in order to escape the demons from her past. Not to mention she hides a dangerous secret. Plus, she was just the kind of person who would fall in love with Kuchiki Byakuya. ***NOT BYAKURUKI.*** Byakuya/OC. Slight Byakuya/Hisana.


*****MUST READ***: Alright, for the last two days_ fanfiction_ has been screwing around with my stories, like messing up my their intro. summaries to where they looked like a mentally-challenge person wrote them without fully completing the sentences to explain what they were about yadda, yadda, yadda. You get the picture. So, I do apologize if I keep re-updating this story. This is the last time, I promise. And I do hope you enjoy it. It's gonna be one heck of a wild ride, believe me.**

**This is NOT a ByakuRuki. I repeat, this is NOT a ByakuRuki.**

*****DISCLAIMER***: Tite Kubo owns **_**Bleach. **_**I own Shirai, as well as any other OC characters you'll meet. **

*****NOTE***: This story will flip back and forth between the past and present. **

**INSPIRATIONAL SONG: "Fate" by Bleak ft. Ana Johnsson.**

_**Chapter 1**_

_**1944**_

_Lightning flashed from the clouds above, the thunder echoing behind as rain poured over the foreign ship down below. The wind howling powerfully. _

_Judging by the billowing smoke and thrashing flames, this vessel wasn't going to last much longer as Isabel pushed her way out of room and into the smoking hallway, her green eyes burning with tears, her vision clouded with thickening black smoke. Coughing violently, she pushed her way forward, trying her best not to slip from the slippery floorboards. _

_After pushing her way onto the deck, she was appalled to find the ship in complete chaos. Flames erupted from every corner as the crew members sought to dose the spreading fire, many of them failing. Many of them wounded. Many of them dying._

_Sirens screamed._

_Isabel fell to her knees as she covered her ears, the tears flowing violently as she tried her best to block out the screams. Her teeth clenching. _

_**It's my fault... It's my fault...**_

_An explosion from behind lurched the ship forward, and Isabel went careening out of control as she rammed into something hard, her ears pounding. Dizzily sitting up, she tentatively touched the side of her head, her hand smearing with blood as she winced. _

_**I have to find him. I have to find my brother...**_

_Rising on shaking legs, her drenched dress stained, she faced the raging flames. Her face partially obscured by her shoulder-length tangled hair. _

_Hot blood drizzled down the side of her face. The heat..._

_**Brother...**_

_Another explosion lurched the ship forward, and Isabel was falling. Her silent scream barely reaching her own ears as she crashed into the dark waters below. Her eyes rolling into the back of her head from the pain and exhaustion. _

_But she refused to give up._

_Clenching her teeth, Isabel exploded to the surface above with a loud gasp, her messy locks clinging to her face as she tried her best to stay above the rolling waters. _

_Latching on to large piece of broken board, Isabel watched in gaping horror as the ship slowly began to sink into the murky depths below. Her heart constricting with pain... and loss. _

_**No...**__ Her eyes blurred with tears. __**Brother!**_

_But it was too late. _

_Swirling herself around, Isabel used what little strength she had to pull the upper half of her body onto the wooden debris, her muscles straining with effort. Her head dizzy from the blood loss as she heavily sagged atop the board, her fists clenching. _

_**It's my fault...**_

Lifting up her eyes, she briefly caught the yellow sight of a faraway glow.

_**It's my fault!**_

Then everything went black.

**~xXx~**

_**Present...**_

Green eyes snapped wide open, giving a questionable look at the blushing, red-haired female student sitting in front of the rest of the class. "Yes, Inoue-san?" She blinked.

"U-umm..." the young student blushed, averting her eyes as the rest of the class looked at each other dubiously. "You're cellphone is ringing."

And so it was. The ringer of said device stringing loudly with classical music.

The teacher kept her face calm while mentally wishing to strangle the person who dared tried to contact her during the middle of her class. And right when her students were taking a test too! "So it is."

Snatching the phone from atop her desk, she stood up, her long wavy hair gliding behind her in brown waterfalls of thick silk. "You may continue taking your tests quietly," she told them.

Stepping outside into the hall, she closed the door behind her.

Awkward silence, and then...

"You know for a foreigner," the trouble-maker known as Asano Keigo said to Ichigo, his eyes dreamy, "she's really hot."

"Oh, shut up, Keigo," Tatsuki whispered fiercely, glaring over her shoulder, "Tanaka Sensei isn't _that_ foreign-looking."

"But she is pretty," Orihime piped up next to Tatsuki.

"I'll say," Keigo drawled a lazy trance, his eyes drooping with lust as he slouched low into his seat, "those luscious curves and towering height of hers says it all."

"Keigo's got a point," Mizuro pointed out, leaning in close to Tatsuki, "she is pretty tall. Taller than any of the other women I've seen in Japan."

"Round buttocks," Keigo started to drool, "infinite bosoms..."

_"Oh, give it a rest already!" _Ichigo's aloft control finally snapped as he punched the perverted student on the head, causing the poor boy to whine like a pathetic girl. The rest of the student body sniggering. It was already bad enough that he'd been twenty minutes late for his Language Lab.

* * *

"What is it now, Urahara?" Tanaka Shirai hissed into the speaker, her eyes narrowing as she turned away from her classroom's window. "This better be important."

"My, my," the other voice on the end of the line mocked with a purr, "you sound irritated. The brats finally getting on your nerve, huh?"

"What do you want?" she demanded, her tone lowering as she took a few steps forward. Her heels echoing loudly upon the polished tiles inside the empty halls of the building. "My students are in the middle of taking a test- "

"She's here," Urahara interrupted, his teasing voice suddenly serious, causing Shirai to halt in mid-step.

"What?"

"You heard me," sounds of pottery clinking together could be heard on the other end of the line, "the one you've been searching for all those years ago in the Rukongai? Well, she's here."

"What are you talking about?" Urahara made it sound so casual, as if looking for people was what she did best for a living. "Urahara- "

"Rukia. Kuchiki Rukia."

It was as if the entire world seemed to freeze in that one, crucial moment, and Shirai could've sworn that her heart had missed more than a beat as she stood rooted in place. Her body as stiff as stone. "What?" she whispered, her hand shaking. "What did you say?"

No. It couldn't be. Urahara was lying. He had to be! How was that even...?

"I'm telling you the truth. Haven't you noticed anything a little different lately about one of your students- Kurosaki Ichigo? Well, she's the one who's responsible for it."

Shirai looked over her shoulder, her eyes fastening onto the room of her classroom. Now that Urahara mentioned it, the boy's spiritual pressure had been fluctuating wildly. So wildly, in fact, that it pratically frightened her. She'd known for a long time that he was special, or- in a Soul Reaper's case, he had a unique potential. An extremely unique potential. But ever since last night...

"So that's what that was," she muttered, more to herself, then turned away, "and how do you all of this?"

"Ohhhh," Urahara seemed to sing, "a little birdie flew by the shop this morning requesting for a gigai. Almost pissed in my pants before I realized who it really was."

Shirai trembled with emotion. "I see," her voice shook, but she kept it firm. She straightened up. "Thank you, Kisuke."

"Kuchiki Rukia. You'll know her by sight, trust me." And then he hung up.

Kuchiki Rukia.

Shutting her phone, Shirai walked back into her classroom.

_Kuchiki..._

* * *

She had spotted the petite raven-haired girl walking alongside the arrogant Kurosaki kid as they exited the school together. _Urahara was right, _she narrowed her eyes, _the resemblance is remarkable._

It was typical of Urahara Kisuke to divulge less information than she would normally want. He was, after all, an ex-Soul Reaper not to mention the infamous "retired" captain of the Twelfth Division as well as the former head of Research and Development. Secrecy was the last thing he needed to have. And yet, it was one of his best defenses he used, not that Shirai could really blame him. She was guilty for having her own fair share of secrets as well. Ones- like Urahara himself- that could seriously reap disasterous punishments.

She wasn't going to lie. It pained Shirai greatly to see her, this... Kuchiki Rukia. Her looks and hair alone damaging Shirai's reign over her emotions stood near the building's stairs, her fists clenching. The memories of a dearly beloved friend with short black hair, stunning violet eyes, but gentle demeanor from so long ago shifted inside her mind like an instant flash.

And_ Kuchiki_?

Adjusting the straps of her book-bag, she too exited the throng of hording students as they hurriedly retreated from campus, their faces alighted with excitement at finally being free from this lingering prison known as "education". Something which always managed to baffle Shirai to no end. Did these kids have any idea how lucky they were to be even privileged to go to school?

"Good-bye, Miss Tanaka!" Several of the students, especially a few of the class clowns, waved at her as they passed by, and Shirai smiled in return. She loved being a teacher, she truly did. It was definitely a lot more lenient than being a Soul Reaper. A job, she'll admit to anyone, that she had enjoyed with all her heart once upon a time.

A nice breeze filtered across the way, lazily toying with the ends of her skirt and hair as she headed towards the elementary building a block away from the high school, smiling as she caught sight of the small children running to greet their parents. But one boy in particular stood out to her.

"Hey, Oka-san."

Her grin growing, Shirai affectionately rubbed the raven head of the boy standing in front of her. His expression surprisingly serious for a lad his age. Well, his _supposed_ age anyway. "Hello... Koryuu."

Smiling, the boy gave his mother an affectionate hug, and Shirai returned it. Her arms embracing his thin yet surprisingly tall frame. A trait in which he'd generously inherited from his father along his good looks, as well as the- here Shirai grinned- arrogance. But he was such a handsome boy, kind and benevolent. If there was one person she loved most in the world, it was definitely her son. "How was school?"

He shrugged, walking alongside her as they headed out into town. "The same. Nothing I've never been taught before though. Too easy."

Shirai chuckled. Fifty-years old, and yet Koryuu didn't look over a day over ten, and was way more knowledgeable than any of his students, or his teachers, for that matter, by a long shot. But getting him enrolled into a public school would be good for him. The poor thing had been forced into a gigai ever since his birth. "So _you_ say, but the report card says it louder," she slung an arm around his slender shoulders, her fingers toying with the tips of his short locks. She never once doubted his ingenuity. He was a smart boy. Always striving to work towards a greater goal. "Are you hungry? I'm a little tired this afternoon so we'll just grab something for dinner on the way home, alright? So, what would you like to eat?"

Excited round green eyes locked with her own. "Spicy noodles?"

She laughed. _Definitely his father's boy. _Too bad it always managed to make her heart break at the reminder of it. She hugged him closer, tussling his hair once more. "Spicy noodles it is, then."

In the meantime, she'd thoroughly be keeping an eye on this Kuchiki Rukia. If what she suspected was true, then that girl was going to end up in one hell hole of a trouble.

But then again, if the Soul Society ever found out about Koryuu...

**~xXx~**

_**Soul Society, two months later...**_

He shrugged the typical white haori onto his broad shoulders, took one long look in the mirror, then frowned. He was only going to the real world to retrieve his sister. Why even bother?

Shrugging the heavy coat off, he carefully wrapped his scarf around his neck, making sure that not a single thing about his dress and appearance was out of place. As the 28th head of the clan and most highly respected captain among the Soul Society, maintaining the perfect image became imperative.

He, Kuchiki Byakuya, _was_ imperative.

A knock on his door alerted his attention. _"Hai," _he refused to turn, _"Dare ga imasuka?" _

"Byakuya-sama," the elderly retainer bowed from outside the door, "pardon the disturbance, but Abarai Renji fukutaicho is waiting for you outside the gate."

Byakuya closed his eyes. It was time. Now or never. For Rukia's sake, as well as his own, he could only pray that the Court be lenient with her punishment. Her resulting actions producing serious consequences. "Very well, then."

He picked up the familiar photo erected atop his desk, his grey eyes staring into the familiar demure smile of the woman he'd married long ago. A woman who, much to his awareness, did not love him. At least, not in the way that a lover did.

He had loved Hisana... but only like a sister.

"I'm going... Hisana."

Setting the photo aside with a sigh, he bowed his head, suddenly feeling much His fingers finding their way pass the folds of his scarf where he pulled out a small yellow locket the shape of a spiraling seashell. Against his better judgement he opened it, his heart bruising with the painful reminder of seeing the somber face belonging to the first important person he'd lost in his life.

Hisana had been the second.

"Know that you're always close to my heart," he whispered, and released a heavy breath. Whereas Hisana had stoked the embers of his passion, this particular being ignited the flames like roaring furnace.

Stuffing away the locket, he turned with a flourish and exited his room. Renji and him had a mission to complete, and couldn't afford to waste anymore time than he already had.

The image of smiling green eyes never once leaving his mind.

**~xXx~**

**Koryuu - **_"small dragon"_

**Well, what do you think? I hope it's not too confusing. I'll do my best to make sure you guys know what is the past and present. I'll admit, the challenge, while fun, is very tedious sometimes. **

**Your reviews would be much appreciated. **


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